Life's Sudden Changes
by Sharky42
Summary: No one wants to break from the path they've laid out to perfection, but sometimes life decides to throw you a curve ball and leaves you in the middle of a field unsure of what to do. It is up to those people to find their own way out and decide if they want to take the adventure as good or bad. Deals with teen pregnancy. One-shot.


**Well, I learned my lesson. Don't give a just under 2 year old a hershey's bar because he will make sure almost the entire thing melts in his hands and then will leave a trail of chocolate everywhere in the house you just cleaned. Then complain when you try to clean him up.**

**And it's snowing. This is insane, the snow was already knee level at the lowest parts and I think there's close to another foot out there just from today. I'm so glad I fixed the snowblower the other day, though I'd rather not deal with it at all.**

**So, yea, I just wanted to write something more on reality. Does anyone else picture them as human when they write/read fanfics? I must have no imagination. XD Um, read, enjoy, I'm not too sure on this. And I'm horrible at titles.**

**Copyright Ross B. and Janice K. I just wrote the story, I didn't make up the characters**

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**Life's Sudden Changes**

"We'll be back later," she gave him a quick kiss as they walked over to the door that led out of the apartment, "make sure you finish your essay."

"Will do," he simply stated as he watched them walk to the elevator down the hallway before closing the door.

He relaxed into the couch, propping his feet on the coffee table before grabbing the laptop that was sitting on the cushion next to him. The cursor blinking on the blank, open document meant he had a ways to go in the next couple of hours.

For his literature class the professor had challenged them to write an essay on a time when their character was put to the test and how it had changed them. While there were a few incidents growing up that he could write about without making as much of an impact he knew in the end that the current one would be there for the rest of his life and would continue to change his beliefs, his actions, and his thoughts as the years went on.

So, placing his hands on the keyboard he began to type.

_ Life's path can change in the blink of an eye and before you know it you're standing there wondering what to do with no correct answer. The words of a song become an all too familiar adage for this part of my life:_

_There goes my life  
There goes my future  
My everything… There goes my life_

_ A simple expression to explain clearly the different situation I was in a couple years ago and today. _

Less than three months, that's all he had left until graduation. He had been invited into a few elite colleges all fighting for him to come to their school as he'd be an asset with his intelligence they believed. Even the weather was perfect as he ran around the high school track at the end of practice to cool down.

Nothing could break his happy mood.

That is, until his grey-blue eyes met her emerald ones as she waited for him in the bleachers. The same emerald eyes that were puffy and bloodshot from crying.

His pace slowed and he finally stopped as he was almost overwhelmed by the panic of what it could be.

_Nothing could break my elated mood, except for the girl that I saw breaking down in front of me._

They walked behind the bleachers for more privacy from the few people still on the track field.

"Jeanette," he lifted a hand to brush against her cheek and could feel the tears beginning to form in his eyes, he didn't like to see her cry, but she was down right distraught, "what's wrong?"

"I'm pregnant," it was almost a whisper he didn't hear, but he did. Or maybe he didn't.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm pregnant."

His breath caught in his throat and he could feel his heart wanting to burst right out of his chest. Pregnant?

"I thought you were on the pill," he spoke the words like he was accusing her as the shock consumed him.

"I was," her words were shaky and he could hear her take a deep breath, "it must have failed."

Frustrated, he roughly ran his hands through his hair and walked away from her. He didn't want to be here right now. He couldn't be here right now. Not if he didn't want to lose his cool.

He completely missed the sob that escaped her as he didn't turn back around to her. He was only consumed with his own shock. Not realizing that she needed him.

_Anger, hurt, embarrassment; those three words consumed me in that locker room._

Entering the empty locker room he angrily tore off his shirt and threw it at his locker. This was not happening, not to them at least. It couldn't. People like them, the smart ones; they didn't just become teenage parents. They were smarter than that.

But it was really happening, wasn't it?

He slid down the lockers he was leaning against as he let out a frustrated sigh. He sobbed silently in the quiet room before hearing the door being opened.

"Hey Si," he forgot that his brother would be waiting for him after his baseball practice, they usually headed home together, "I just ran into a really upset Jeanette and…"

His brother suddenly stopped talking and he could feel eyes watching him intently, he was sure the tears were what worried him.

"Did you two break up?" he heard his brother plop down on the floor next to him to talk, but he didn't want to. Not about this, not right now. He just wanted to be left alone.

"No."

"Did you have a fight?"

"No, Alvin," as much as he loved his brother and he was just trying to help, the boy was just frustrating him even more right now, "just leave me alone."

"Fine, I was just trying to help," Alvin stated in defense before a long, awkward pause.

Sighing, his brother stood up to leave, "whatever is going on, you should really talk to her, Simon. I told her to wait by the exit and I'd get you for her."

_Facing the person I had just walked away from in a time when she needed me to understand is the most terrifying feeling I had been faced with to that day. What do I say? What do I do? Where do we go from here?_

There she was. He saw her before she saw him; he could tell her mind was elsewhere as she stared out at the woods nearby the high school. After his brother left he had changed and thought about the situation for a little while. At first he wanted to exit the school through another door, he couldn't face her, not after what she told him and definitely not after he had just left her standing there. After he shook the thought out of his head the moral part of his brain told him he couldn't do that to her.

Despite their current situation he still loved her.

He was going to make this work out somehow, he had to. She shouldn't deal with this alone, he _had_ played just as much of a roll in it.

Her eyes were filled with fear as he approached her, but they weren't fearful of him, they were fearful of what was happening. It was enough for his heart to feel like it had stopped beating and been broken into a million pieces. He found himself grabbing her into an embrace and as her tears fell when she buried her head in his chest he knew she was going to need him just as he needed her.

_I never thought I'd be having this kind of conversation about my child's future before she had even been born. It wasn't a conversation about the fantasies most parents have about their child's future and how they're going to be a success and achieve many goals in life. It was the type of conversation of what we were going to do with her after she was born. Do we keep her or give her away?_

They sat on the curbside at the school knowing that they were missing dinner and when they returned home they would be in trouble. That trouble would not be as bad as the one they'll face once they told their respective parent about the situation they were in.

"Please don't suggest abortion," her voice broke the silence between them.

"What? Why?"

He heard her sigh as she turned to look at him, "I just wouldn't be able to go through with it."

"Ok, well, I'm not suggesting it," he took a deep breath; he always thought in his life that he'd be much older and overly happy that his wife just gave him the good news. Instead he was 18 and his girlfriend just broke the bad news to him, and here they sat discussing the baby's fate, "there's always adoption."

He watched silently as her face fell and she looked away from him. If what he knew about her past was right she wouldn't want the baby to be lost in the system like her and her sisters were or always wondering who their birth parents were. He knew the only option she'd be completely happy with was keeping the baby, even if that meant losing him in the process.

"Yea," was her soft reply, he knew she said it more out of reflex than an answer to him.

Since the topic at hand was completely disgusting him at the moment he decided to push it off for another time. Brushing off his pants as he stood up he held a hand out her way. They had to go home and they had to tell their parents. They couldn't avoid dinner much longer, and they couldn't push off the inevitable no matter how much he wanted to never return to his house at the moment. Instead they were going to get the two parents together and tell them the news.

_ Our silence made the air in the room thick; this wasn't something either of us believed we would ever have to tell our respective parent. They expected great things out of us and here we were telling them the hardest thing we had to do as of that day._

The four people in the room sat in utter silence after the lectures, tears, and anger had ceased. There was nothing left to discuss or fight over and he didn't know what to do. The sound of the wall clock driving him almost mad, someone needed to break the tension but he knew not to open his mouth in fear of enticing more anger out of the two parents. Instead he grabbed her hand, the fear almost radiating off of her and he could feel her hand slightly shaking because of it. Of course, neither parent could tell, they were both still scathing mad; at least he thought they didn't notice.

"Maybe we should be heading home David," the elder lady's voice shook from the tears she had been crying about how her little girl was still a baby herself. With those words and a look from her mother he felt her hand leave his as she stood up from the couch preparing to leave. He almost wanted to snatch it back and not let her go, but something inside him told him to leave things as they were at the moment.

"I'd like to have a conversation alone with my little girl," the emotional lady engulfed his girlfriend in a hug before they turned and headed to the front door with his father seeing them out. She didn't speak to him or look back once before exiting the house and he fought off the urge to chase after her.

He heard a deep sigh once the front door closed and he felt the couch next to him shift with the weight of the man he called a father.

"Look we're not angry with you, just a little upset," he saw the man rub the bridge of his nose in frustration.

And maybe it would have been better of him to keep his mouth shut because of the look he received in response, but at the moment he was feeling quite defensive, "just a little upset?"

"Ok, Simon, a lot upset," the man just resigned to sigh in frustration as he continued to speak, "look, no parent wants to hear their teenage child tell them they're going to have a baby, especially when they have so much living left to do."

There was the silence again; something rarely heard in this house filled with three boys growing up, it was unnerving when it was this quiet. The other two boys had been kicked out of the house as soon as the two adults learned of what was going on. This was something that needed to be discussed without prying ears at the moment, no matter how much they protested.

_There were many nights of troubled sleep that week and the months to come. My thoughts focused on my own selfishness. I really was immature still, how was I going to raise a child to not be selfish when I couldn't even get the greedy thoughts out of my own head? _

"Can't sleep?"

The voice had scared him out of his thoughts and he looked up to see his father smiling down at him. He tossed and turned all night before finally giving in and had wandered down to the kitchen for water, but there he was staring off into space while he sat at the kitchen table, consumed with only thoughts of how this was affecting him.

He didn't bother answering his father as he looked down and grabbed the glass of water in front of him to play with.

The older man sighed as he sat down next to him and began to speak, "This is going to change everything you do in your life now, whether you take that as a good or bad thing is up to each of you individually."

"I don't know how to take it," he whispered playing intently with the glass of water. The entire school year he had worried about what college to attend and now he was going to have to put that all on hold. It was the right thing to do after all, though part of him didn't want to put _his_ life on hold at all.

"Well, I'll tell you this," his father shifted to lean back in the chair, "about 18 years ago I was left with three babies. I could have easily let you three get lost in the system, but I fought hard to adopt you, and I was terrified out of my mind," he felt an arm wrap around his shoulders to bring him into a slight hug, "and you all became the greatest things in my life, I wouldn't have it any other way."

_I don't exactly know if it had been that late night chat that had changed my own way of thinking, but his words never left my thoughts. He had told me, "you have to stop thinking about what you lost and instead focus on what you have gained. It may not be ideal but it's not the end of the world," Those words were true at the moment though I didn't fully believe it. It wasn't the end of the world, even though I wasn't too convinced at the moment a part of me knew I couldn't just continue to ignore what was going on._

"Jeanette!" he spotted her after school with her sisters, who were presently glaring at him as he jogged up to them. He was sure their anger with him was due to the fact that the two had become awkward and barely talked in the past week since finding out. He didn't blame them; he was just another teenage boy that was going to leave his pregnant girlfriend for his own selfish needs, leaving her to take care of a baby on her own. At least he figured that's what was going through their minds.

"Uh, could we have a moment, please?" He could feel the tension and didn't want to deal with three angry females, his only concern was with one of them at the moment.

"Oh, no," he should have known, the red head, Brittany, blurted out while the other one, Eleanor, just nodded her head in agreement. They would always be there to defend their sister, even if it was against the father of her baby, "whatever you have to say to our sister can be said in front of all of us."

Not in the mood to argue he just let out a frustrated sigh, "fine," the word came out kind of harsh, but he soon spoke with a softer tone as he turned to her, "Jeanette, I know things between us are a little weird right now, but I don't want them to be."

There was a long pause and he thought that she would almost walk away from him and out of his life, but then she let out the air from her lungs he was sure she had been holding and glanced up at him, "we really messed up, didn't we?"

"I wouldn't say that exactly," he held out his arms for her and she accepted his embrace, "besides, it's not going to be the end of the world. People do this all the time." He was reiterating what his father had stated the night before, but somehow he still had a slight fear in him.

"What are we going to do?" the doubt was evident in her voice as she spoke.

"We're going to make wonderful parents," he stated sarcastically. Though his voice was joking another part of him was being serious and he could tell that she understood.

_As full of doubt and fear that I was, and I'm sure her too, I knew my new title in a few short months was going to be father. It really wasn't an ideal time in our lives but I knew if we handed off our first child to people we didn't know that I would spend the rest of my life wondering where she ended up, how she was doing, who she was. No, my mind was made up, and I'm sure hers reiterated the same. We were just going to have to keep our daughter and try our hardest to become good parents._

_ Though I feared how many times I would fail and how often I would regret decisions I made in regards to her. It didn't matter how much we prepared; nothing prepared me for the overwhelming feeling I got that first time I heard her cry and the first time this tiny, fragile being was in my arms._

She had been in labor for over a day and was now finally getting some sleep. He was amazed at the whole process and just how much will power it took her to be able to continue on; even if she didn't have any other choice in the matter. All the health classes with their horrifying videos didn't nearly show even half of what would go on in a delivery room. And he was somewhat amazed and repulsed at how something so little had seemed so big as she came into the world.

But that was in the near past, at the present the tiny babe was sleeping soundly in his arms. It was the first time he was holding her since she was born and it almost felt awkward if it wasn't for the feeling of happiness he got as he studied all the features of the little being.

Perfection. That's the only word that could come to his mind.

He ran a finger gently down the side of her face feeling the soft skin as he admired her, "I love you baby girl," he spoke in a whisper to her like it was a secret between the two of them. She seemed to respond by stretching and settling further into his arm, she seemed completely content even if her parents hadn't been exactly prepared.

_From that day my entire world had changed from a meaning of myself and my wants in life to those of hers. It wasn't the easiest switch to make and we had our fights. If I had a choice in the matter I know back then I would have chosen a different path for us. But today, at this moment, I know I wouldn't want it any other way, no matter how imperfect it is. While many would like their lives to be perfect (as I would like to do now), there is no such thing as perfection in life, and I have learned that. The only perfection in life can be measured by the amount of laughter and love you allow to be let in by others. In the end those are truly the only things that you can measure. The amount of material possessions, money, and greed you possess will not be there to mourn you when you pass and will not fill the hole that you've let expand as you've cut others out of your life._

His thoughts were interrupted as the door to the modest two bedroom apartment opened up revealing the woman he loved and the young toddler being carried on her hip. Once they graduated high school they had been lucky enough to find full-time jobs and saved up enough to move into their own place not far from family. The same family that would spend countless days and nights babysitting for them in return for the countless hours they spent helping fix up houses, mow grass, and helping out in any way they could.

And while they were already living a stressful life, they had both decided to add to that stress and start up school part-time at the local college. Working during the day and studying at night. It made time together as a family much more difficult, but something that would be worth it in the end.

"How was it?" he asked as she placed the toddler on the floor and set her keys on the nearby counter.

"It was fun."

He watched the little girl, her curls bouncing as she ran over to him in excitement, "dada, fish!" She held out a stuffed fish to show him what she had got at the aquarium and he smiled brightly at her before picking her up and hugging her.

It didn't matter that the path they were on had taken a sharp turn because after the fear it put in them and the uncertainness it made them feel they had found themselves again coasting. While there were a few bumps on the way they were only a part of the imperfect life they had built. No, life wasn't perfect, but it would have never been anyway no matter how much he had planned and tried to make it that way.

But at this moment as he looked up to see the woman smiling at the sight of father and daughter together, he knew that it was close to perfect to him and that was all he needed.

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**So, not sure how this came out. I reread it and fixed a few odd spots but it still seems a little off to me. That's ok though. Just another story about life in general. Remember, life isn't perfect, not even for those where it looks like it's perfect. You have to define your own perfection and realize that things do happen, but those things don't necessarily have to be a bad thing, it's all how you decide to view it. So if you're having a bad day, take a deep breath and realize that today is just a blip in the amount of days you will have in life, and that you will have more decent and happy days then you will have bad, so don't focus on the bad things, focus on the good.**

**Ok, I'm stepping off my soapbox now.**

**The song referenced is Kenny Chesney's "There Goes My Life" It's a great song.**


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